"I think, Citizen Consul, that, having sworn to the constitution of the eighteenth Brumaire, as President of the Council of the Five Hundred, and seeing you despise it thus, if I were not your brother I would be your enemy!"
"My enemy!" screamed Bonaparte. "Try it once! That's rather strong!" And, shaking his fist at Lucien, as he had done once before, "Thou my enemy!" he screamed again, and then sank back in the water up to his neck, as if exhausted. In a moment he spoke again in a somewhat quieter tone:
"Cease this miserable caviling which you and Joseph are at work on night and day—ridiculous for him, and still less appropriate for you. It is not from you that I expect lessons in government. Enough! Forget all you have said about it! I shall contrive to dispense with you. A precious, well-disposed pair of brothers you are! Please call back the valet; I must get out of the bath-tub at once."
The valet had come in; Joseph and Lucien, thinking the matter was dropped, were turning toward the door; the valet was spreading open the sheet to wrap up his master, when the Consul suddenly returned to the charge, and thundered in a tone that made Lucien and Joseph start and turn back quickly, and the valet drop the sheet from his trembling hands:
"Well, sirs, think what you please about the sale of Louisiana! but you may both of you put on mourning over this thing—you, Lucien, over the sale of your province; you, Joseph, because I propose to dispense with the consent of all persons whatsoever. Do you hear?"
I fairly shivered in my hiding-place at such an outbreak on such a topic in the presence of a servant. Lucien shrank farther toward the door, but Joseph, who had held his peace through the quarrel of the two brothers, stung by the scornful words and manner, and especially by the contemptuous "Do you hear?" which was like a cutting snapper to the Consul's lashing wrath, rushed back, exclaiming:
"You will do well, my dear brother, not to lay your plan before the Chambers, for I swear to you I will put myself, if necessary, at the head of the opposition which will certainly be made."
There was no reply from Bonaparte but an outburst of loud and sardonic laughter.
Joseph flushed dark red, and, almost beside himself with rage, stooping over the figure that lay immersed in the bath, screamed out:
"Laugh! laugh! laugh, then! All the same, I shall do what I say, and, though I do not like to mount the tribune, this time you'll see me there!"